Does NPM Increase the Politicization of the Civil Service

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between New Public Management (NPM) and the political re-cruitment of civil servants. Some claim that NPM has had the unintended effect of muddling the politico-administrational divide, rather than the opposite. This argument is elaborated here by the suggestion that the managerialism and contractualism of NPM have provided politicians with a reason and the means to politicize the civil service by making more political appointments of agen-cy heads. Since there is not much empirical evidence for this relationship, it is also tested. The test is made through a cross-sectional analysis of the politicization of 120 Swedish public agencies in 2009. The results indicate that politicians do not appoint agency heads with a political background more frequently to public agencies with a stronger NPM orientation. Thus, the hypothesis that NPM leads to a politicized civil service is not supported.